Well, it's lonely here. Everyone is out having fun or doing exams or both. Just me and Duke to hold the fort. Nevermind! The Foundry and Tourney divisions are brimming with articles so there's plenty to keep you occupied. And I've popped in a few teasers in the other divisions as well. At least they can all yell at me when they get back. Speaking of which, isn't it time that YOU got on board and helped us out? Would be great to hear from you!

Hello all to the mess hall. And boy is it messy today! There was a party and no-one has cleaned up. Leehar is off and Saf is having an extra helping of exams! So I've waded in and tried to clean up some of this mess. Underneath a shop mannequin I found The Scum Insider but it had gotten wet and I've had to rewrite it from scratch. Goodness only knows what they've done with the Interview so we'll just have to do without that for this issue!

Want to get into the Mafia scene, but don't know how to play or even what it is? Consult these threads: Mafia Information, Mafia and You, and Rules and Terms of Mafia.Too much work? Too lazy to read through everything? No worries, you can always jump right into a game and ask for other players or the game runner to help guide you.

What is "Mafia"?Mafia, for those of you that don't know, is a game that generally takes place in a town, where the townspeople have to determine who the mafia (or "scum") is and lynch them via a majority vote during the day and the mafia try to kill everyone at night and bluff their way out of getting killed by the town.

Mafia News----

Mafia CalloutsCalling all players interested! Some mafia games need some filling:

Sign-ups:Well, that's a turnup for the books ... there are no new Mafia games to join as of writing this!!

Seeking Replacements:Consult the Replacement Thread to see what games are in need of reserves/replacements. But as of writing this we have:

A most unusual role, and not one that I've seen in the few games I've played.

The Tree Stump is a player who has lost their abilities other than being able to vote. They have no day powers. They have no night powers. They may as well be dead.

You may become a Tree Stump because your role allows you to (say you may prefer to do that than be a vigilante when town is at Lylo). You may have been turned into a Tree Stump by some other player with the power to do that.

Mafia-aligned Tree Stumps may be allowed to continue contacting the other Mafiosi privately. Depending on how good a strategist the Tree Stump is, this can be nightmarishly powerful for scum. Otherwise, a townie or third-party Tree Stump is really just a distraction (albiet potentially valuable to the gameplay).

Although not a power role, it may be a good way of avoiding being lynched. After all they are now vanilla. One form of breaking strategy in games where every player can become a Tree Stump is to simply force people to Stump themselves when they would otherwise be lynched. As Stumping does not end the Day, the Town thus gets pseudo-infinite lynching potential.

It might be a useful lie - although I wouldn't do that too quickly after this article because who's going to believe you

We've had a total fire in this wing of the newsletter and there's only one small parchment that I could save.

A sage player once said "don't attack if you have less than three troops". Good advice!

Hello again my friends, and welcome to your favorite part of the Newsletter, "War Games", where you can find information about CC Tournaments!

Thehippo8 not only is the Publisher of the Dispatch this time around, but he has given us an excellent article about his impressions of the recently-completed Chatters Tournament. Thank you hippo!

Unstoppable workhorse DaveH weighs in with his two series. The different strands of his work have now come completely together, as his rescue of the TPA series provides new material for his Tournament Tips, and vice versa.

This was an initiative of the Chatters Team. Until I was invited to be an Honorary Chatter (thanks Trinicardinal) I really had little to do with chatting in the Social area. To me that was just a manner of communicating in real time with others in a more user friendly way. But I must say I enjoyed my time as an Honorary Chatter and the people I met there were fun and lively bunch!!

The premise was that it was a tourney like any other, save that the mods got to set up as many games as they liked and whatever settings they liked. The community against the mods. Community could only join games by being invited generally from the Chat forum. Games were password protected and that's where the passwords were obtained.

For the community, the competition came with big rewards. A whole year premium for the person who beat the most mods. Second place 6 months and third and fourth places 3 months a piece so that a whole two years was given away! A maximum of three games could be played against mods and a final award was available for the person who won the most games against mods on an aggregate basis. The only exception to the three game rule was that if mods set up team games then they could be played in addition to the three games already played and thereby the final award competition became more keen.

The competition was fierce and a small pool of players rose to the top of the tree. On the mod side there was a healthy competition to see who could create and play the most games. I am proud to say I won that competition (what - no medal?) and thoroughly enjoyed myself in the process. Here are the rest of the results:

plurple wrote:OK the final scores are in (well all except 4 games that can't effect any standings)

so just to confirm then:1)cooldeals with 262)cryinlion with 223)swifte with 174)eddie2 with 17

and myself getting the honorary mention of having most games played without winning anything. having played 40 games and only three other players in the tourney managed to play more games than me 2 of which were mods bruceswar with 43 and thehippo8 with 45 and the winner cooldeals with 44. so i believe these scores to be accurate if there not take it up with trini not me as he asked me too find this information out.

As far as tourney's go, this was one that I will never forget. It was hectic (over about a week or so) and absorbed a lot of my time, but I don't regret that for a moment! I hope they do more but next time it would be good if it were also announced on the front page and thereby draw more people to the chatting arena. That said, well done the usual Chat mods - a fantastic concept and a great effort by all!!

Completed tournaments used to be kept in a single forum, but about a year ago, the Tournament Directors decided to separate them according to year. Here's a link.

Just thought I'd have a quick look.

The first is the obvious progression in tournaments each year:2006 142007 1212008 4712009 10482010 15122011 18682012 1493Obviously, the 2012 numbers are still growing. At the current pace, there should be 1991 completed tournaments in the 2012 folder by the end of the year.

If you're keeping track, that means there are 5167 completed tournaments.

Looking at year-over-year growth (and leaving out 2006 and 2012 because they are partial years) we get:2007-2008 289.26%2008-2009 122.71%2009-2010 44.27%2010-2011 23.54%Obviously, there was spectacular growth in the tournament world during the years 2007 to 2009, which slowed down later. If the trend does continue and we have 1991 completed tourneys in 2012, the 2011-2012 year-over-year growth will only be 06.58%, which is a bit of a drag. Still pretty damn good, all things considered. There has been a big decline in all other areas of CC, so the fact that the tournament world has positive growth is, I think, a testament to the determination and dedication of our tournament players and organisers.

Tournament Players Association Year 2 (TPA2) is a series of tournaments that goes on over a year. The first year there was one tournament released every week, this year I am helping to maintain the scoring for the 46 tournaments either completed or in progress and have used the spreadsheet that I will be describing in this article.

Last issue's article described the routine used to update the individual tournament scores from the finishing positions. Each tournament has its own sheet, so the routine needs to do the following actions:* Input the tournament that you want to add its scores to the main spreadsheet scores;* Add the players names and their scores to the main spreadsheet;* Sort the spreadsheet by players names;* Check for duplicate names - if you fine a duplicate, add the scores to one and delete the other;* Sort by scores

And that's it - basically. It is complicated by the fact that the three types of tournaments have their own sub totals and also that it is such a large spreadsheet that I have found some anomalies with the way in which Excel works. For instance, I like to maintain totals as a way of checking and have found that the formula used in Excel, SUM (A1:A300) say, needs to be restated as it can reduce in value even though the routine has not changed it. I therefore found that checksums were incorrect when the size of the spreadsheet increased beyond a certain point.

OK. The spreadsheet looks like this:

Click image to enlarge.

This is sheet 1 of the spreadsheet. Sheets 2 to 48 hold the individual tournament results and sheet 49 is the Scoring sheet that I referred to last week and holds the table of possible scores for the three different types of tournament.

We start, as usual, defining a few variables and assigning them values:

Sub AddTourney() 'name of this routine Dim irow As Integer 'row number for start Dim icol As Integer 'column number for start Dim isheet As Integer 'sheet stating number Dim iplayers As Integer 'number of players Dim itourneys As Integer 'number of tournaments Dim aplayer As String 'player's name Dim asheet As String 'sheet number

'Add a sheet For i = 1 To iplayers + 100 Cells(irow + i - 1, 1).Value = i 'put ranking order in Next i ' which sheet? B = InputBox("Add a tournament's scores? Enter week number (or 0 to exit) Enter a negative week number to subtract the scores.") If B < 0 Then addsheet = False 'subtract that sheet B = -B End IfIf B <> "0" And B <> "" And B < itourneys Then 'b=week number asheet = "Week " & B 'go to Sheets(asheet).Activate Else Exit Sub 'invalid sheet number End If

The ranking order is copied to the first column as this was found to change as the spreadsheet grew - without doing anything to it. Perhaps Excel 2007 gets over this? You enter the week number of the tournament to enter and you can also enter a negative number to erase a sheet's scores. Entering zero or a sheet higher than 52 or pressing cancel will exit the routine. The sheet is then activated so that you can get the information you need.

The sheet is checked to see if there is a players name in the first position. If not then there is an error message. If the cell in position (8, 1) has "Entered" in it then an error message is given and you return to the main spreadsheet screen. Otherwise the list of players is counted and copied as is the type of tournament. Note that if the scores are to be subtracted from the master spreadsheet than the scores are all changed to negative scores.

The tournament type is checked to be a valid one of the three types and there is a "1" or a "-1" put into the tournament number next to all the new players' names under the correct column for the tournament type.

(These "tips" are ones that I have tried to make it a bit easier in managing my own tournaments. I am sure there are different and better methods than these, so please let me know. Any queries on the above I'll be glad to respond to! Please note that I use Excel 2003, so there may be variation in the menu instructions if you have Excel 2007)

7-Up, which was rescued by peanutman, has finished with 7OFU ahead of Agents of Chaos, Seventh heaven and Foed.HA's 4 Opportunities results have been added to the results spreadsheet.Peanutman has done a brilliant job in rescuing these complex and lengthy tournaments (as well as many others!). Well done mate !

The 1st Open Centum has now reached Round 74 and will be the last tournament of TPA! Can the results influence the final positions, which are sonicsteve (played 55, 84.79 points), mudpuppy (played 52, 82.65 points) and bones2484 (played 51, 72.63 points)? Doubtful, as sonicsteve was in the 5 pointer major winning team of 7OFU in the 7-up tournament....

TPA 1 StandingsTPA Season 2: State of PlayThere are now 21 finished tournaments with peanutman's "Even Up" being the last one to finish. This had Gilligan in first place and Leverpuller, Nailer X, ekane and theheadholes following on. The points from last issue's Major tournament have also been added to the master spreadsheet and this gives the following positions:barterer2002 (3,280), being caught up by dowian2 (3,047) and arno30 (shooting up to third with 2,258 points, closely followed by bones2484 (2,249) and wilkinc (2,240).TPA 2 StandingsTPA Season 3Tournaments started are: Super Smash Bros. Quadruples LeaguePremier Mastermind - still recruitingRandom Doubles on Random Map - still recruitingPeanut's 3X Double-Elimination Singles Tournament

The new tournament since the last issue is Lufsen's terminator: Lufsen's Terminator series: Alexanders Empire. This standard tournament recruited quickly and is up and running! We have also juggled the dates of the Majors to get them in with plenty of time to allow then to finish during the year.

So, support their tournaments by joining in and, if you have a tournament to offer, let me know! What about an Assassins and Trench type of tournaments that we can slot in in November?

There is such a thing as a blue moon. According to Bridie Smith, as quoted in Wikipedia:

The term blue moon is the name for the third full moon in a season that has four full moons, instead of the usual three. A blue moon occurs only every two or three years, and the term blue moon is used colloquially to mean a rare event, as in the phrase "once in a blue moon".

Well, depending on how you calculate that, we have had two, possibly three, blue moons pass us by in the time that cairnswk has prepared for us 30 (YES THIRTY) full maps that have passed through the Foundry, through the Beta processes and into CC proper. What a fantastic achievement!! And to commemorate this momentous occasion, koontz1973 brings us two articles featuring cairnswk. The first covers those 30 maps and the second covers maps that are out of Beta, where cairns features again. We all owe an incredible debt of gratitude to cairnswk so let's be upstanding and sing his favourite song ...

Done that? Good! Onto the rest of the issue then. Qyu brings us a fascinating look at that favourite map of yours Arms Race! while I take a look at a new map being developed and some interesting issues it throws up Ring of Fire. koontz1973 gives an in-depth insight into the working of the Foundry and how that may change for the better. We are looking forward to your input (good CC community) to this article. And finally, koontz1973 tickles your dendrites with this issue's comp, a crossword puzzle. Who will be the winner for this issue? And on that note, I leave you with a Turkish proverb:

Have a good look at this medal. It has just been awarded for the very first time in 6 years of Conquer Club. Only one player has it. What is so special about this one medal, well it was given to the first member to provide maps for the site 30 times. That is a staggering 15% of all maps we now get to play. Guys, let me present to you who is surely a map making legend, an all round nice guy.....

AndyDufresne gave cairnswk his first medal back in 2008 on Sun Aug 17 at 7:17 pm for the Bamboo Jack map. What followed was a staggering 16 medals awarded in a space of 50 minutes. LOL Poor Andy must of been cursing cairnswk by the time he finished with him. But one little stat for you, in the 4 years since then, he produced 7.5 maps a year. That is a mind boggling amount of work, time and patience.

thenobodies80 wrote:First of all congratulations for your 30th map achievement!

I think I've already mentioned to you the medal issue, but since you all ask for being totally open. I'm officially asking for a solution to have all your other maps noted somewhere, if possible on the profile. As you know we can award just 30 medals to a user. But I can't live with the idea that a mapmaker (you or everyone else who successfully develop a map) can't have a medal or the map noted somewhere because there's a limit that can be changed via phpBB. I did some test and I proposed to admins 3 solutions. I'm waiting for an answer

Well, this is a start, but I say let's have more than this. No one has even come close to cairnswk in the amount of time given to Conquer Club. Given that each map requires a level of dedication, I think it would be fair to give this guy some sort of special award. Some honour only given to the best of us. Something so rare that in another 6 years we may still only have one of them.

Well done cairnswk, I believe that I speak for all members of the site when I say

After a long wait, longer for the map makers, we finally get three maps out of beta and into normal play. Congratulations go to cairnswk (look at the 30 map article for more on this), lostalimbo who has finally got his very first map medal with Portland and thenobodies80 for Africa 2.Salem's Switch.

Click image to enlarge.

Why Salem? - Sister map for Halloween Hollows, Always been fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials, and of course target US marketAny strategic tips for your maps? - Yeh! Kill 'em quick.Did you enjoy making the map? - very much so - new gameplay like neural networks but adapted elegantly for the idea of using buggys to traverse the regions.

Click image to enlarge.

Why Portland? - I've lived in Portland, OR for the past 7 years and still find it an endlessly intriguing place. The popular slogan: "Keep Portland Weird" - is an edict most Portlanders uphold with pride and also what gives it such great character. Restoration is favoured over destruction, creativity is prevalent and there's a genuine appreciation for both green spaces (Forest Park - the largest urban forest reserve in the US and so many other parks) and green thinking (hence the MAX light-rail transit system and extensive bike lanes).Any strategic tips for your map? - I like the NW bonus as a starting base. I also go after a MAX bonus when I can - its tougher to defend, but the bonus nearly doubles with 2 more territories. Roses or micro brews can be a sneaky play - they catch me off guard in fog and just one round of +7 can be a game changer. So always remember - stop and smell the roses, then have a beer. Ha ha!Did you enjoy making the map? - I started the Portland map back in late 2008 - a couple years before Portlandia became a hit show. It was tough to garner support for the map at first, due in large part to my inexperience in map making. There was definitely some frustration at times and periods of lost interest, but by and large, it was a good experience, I learned a lot and I enjoyed being able to translate so much about this city into a playable map. It was very satisfying when I finally got to play it in Beta.

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Did not get time to ask thenobodies80 the same questions, but will try to get a responce next time round from all who made this made what it is today. thenobodies80, AndyDurfence, IanCanton , Victor Sullivan and me. Never had to ask myself questions before.

The goal is to keep is keep a straight face. The first one to laugh loses the game - and the winner can give him a little slap:

Usually, it's only play by small children. But, during the last half century, it was played by the world big bosses - and the slap would be ... well ... explosive! It was known as the [-drum-roll-] Arms Race!

Indeed, some say there are two sort of maps - those that talk about this world big dick tournament, and the others.

The idea was from Mibi, the graphic from WidowMaker, starting in december 2007, with this first draft :

Click image to enlarge.

The main guidelines of the gameplay were here. That is to say: two blocks; head to head; and without any paths to conquer or invade each other except by the ICBM side way, which only allows to bombard entire other block. To this day this gameplay is still unique. No other map uses the same idea.

Like Mibi said, the map was thought for 1vs1, but it also works for more players

Mibi wrote:1v1:

Each player starts with 9 territories randomly on the two countries. Most likely a player will be strong on one and weak on the other. So the players try to kick each other off the country they are strongest on, since only when your oponent is weak or banish from your motherland are you truly free to be able to take down the neutrals needed for various bonuses and such. Once each player is relegated to one of the countries, the arms race begins. Of course if you are noticeably weaker than your opponent you can use the spies to slow your opponents arms race by attacking the scientists, or got for a full stop by attacking one of the necessary components of a nuclear launch.

The only way to win the game if your opponent is on the other country is through the launch bombardments. You can still bombard your opponent without nuclear capability, but think of this as just conventional missiles, with limited damage. A first nuclear strike will be almost fatal, if not completely.

That is how it is suppose to work, we will tweak the game play to try to make this as possible as possible.

for 3,4,5,6 player games, it will be similar, except you have dominate everyone else on your continent first, the two strongest players will then arms race to the end.

After some discussion about the best layout (will be a 60s like, with radar view and the name of the scientist territories) we got a second draft:

Click image to enlarge.

We already touch something, the main graphic is here. Some minor gameplay issues was to be fixed - such as the bunker. Should they be 'unbombardable', which mean the other block must have another way than the ICBM to reach and kill them, or just give a bonus? Or maybe the spies could attack, so conquer, some other block's territories?

At least, there were many many post about only the graphic, and very few about the gameplay. Amazing, since the gameplay was unique and never-seen before. Or because of this ... never-seen:

Incandenza wrote:I think one of the reasons that this map has received 10x more graphic comments than gameplay ones is that it's really difficult (at least for me anyway) to envision just how this map is going to play ... and if we've learned anything from AoR, it's that complex maps rarely play exactly to form ...

Another thing that crept into the discussion was the 'reset to 1' warhead territory. We know now how it could be coded in the xml, with the 'killer neutral' tag. But at that time, the tag didn't exist. Only the 'decay' one, which reduce the army number, but not reverse the territory owner to neutral. But in early 2008, Lackattack offered to the Foundry the new tag 'killer neutral', certainly a gift from heaven.

But the question could be, as the chicken or the egg causality dilemma, did the map creation come before the features, causing by a request their development, or did the released features free the map creation?

The 12th of February 2008: the map reached the Final Forge Stage.

But there is still a major issue in the gameplay. How can a player can kill his opponent if he can't reach the missile territories from the other block/missile? Letting the missile bombard other missile just wasn't real enough. The alternativewas to offer to the spy (for example), the ability to attack instead of bombard other block territories (and thereby quash the Arms Race concept) and thereby needing to conquer the missile to finish the game.

The discussion concluded by allowing the missile to one-way conquer the missile platform. Mibi decided to erase the issue altogether by allowing the missiles to bombard each other. Certainly the easiest solution, for the rules, the graphic and the comprehension.

By the 22nd of March, and after a last gameplay improvment (rise the starting neutral in the missile lauch and rise the arms race bonus), the map was 99% finished:

Click image to enlarge.

Then quenched the 3rd may, and Conquer Clubber were able to ignitiate the fire of apocalypse..... or Duck & Cover.

I'll let Alexander Cockburn conclude here :

Next week Reagan will probably announce that American scientists have discovered that the entire U.S. agricultural surplus can be compacted into a giant tomato one thousand miles across, which will be suspended above the Kremlin from a cluster of U.S. satellites flying in geosynchronous orbit. At the first sign of trouble the satellites will drop the tomato on the Kremlin, drowning the fractious Muscovites in ketchup.

What an amazing community CC is. There are people at either extreme interested in the Foundry. I take myself as the classic wannabe who ogles and dreams of having even a modicum of understanding let alone control over a piece of graphic software who’s circles look like squares, who’s borders look like blotches and who’s idea of detail is pixilation. And at the other extreme are the likes of vaughn03 who, in his own words:

I'm a Studio Retoucher using Photoshop so this is all pretty easy for me and I try to set up my files to be as editable as possible.

And this is only a first draft!! He had worked on one other map, the Mississippi Magnolia. Certainly no lack of talent on the graphics side of things!! But as we all know, it takes more to make a playable map than good graphics. Some say that bad graphics can be a real turn-off over time, but we certainly won’t have problems with that with vaughn03!! Anyway, the premise of the map was described as:

The map is based roughly on Wallace's Map of 1869. If possible I would like to introduce some elements that I have not seen in other conquer club maps. (I've been told that everything has been done, but I have not seen what I have in mind but I've not played all the cc maps either...) Am also looking for suggestions regarding historical, geographical, design, game play - willing to change anything to improve look and gameplay.

Wish list

So far so good, and you’d say – let’s hop to it. But hold the horses, vaughn03 has a wish list. In his words:

To which tkr4lf pointed out: I'm no xml expert, but I'm pretty much 100% sure #'s 1, 2, 3 and 5 cannot be done with the current xml. And koontz1973 added:

tkr is right, some of those features are not doable at the moment. ... Some thoughts for you are ... The typhoons can just become killer neutrals and placed strategically around the map to stifle/open game play up. Example - Place one between Borneo and Java so a player can either go the long way around of have a short cut that kills troops.

But what about the other ideas – are there workarounds for those ideas too?

Workarounds

Firstly, the pop-up map concept. This is simply impossible with the current xml engine. Frankly, I doubt it will ever be available and there will always need to be a workaround. But there are several ways to do inserts and, frankly, I believe that vaughn03’s idea would detract from real play as, and I do not think I’m alone here, I like to see the whole board and the interplay of where all the troops are in relation to one another. If the insert changes depending on the island then reliance on memory is required. And not everyone has one of those! Anyways, there are a number of ways in which inserts can be done. Three examples are Bamboo Jack, California and Salem’s Switch:

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Secondly, moving navies to transport troops and bombard ports? I assume that you are talking about something you hop on and as it travels across the board (maybe five moves to get to the other side) being immune to attack (?) yet able to bombard as they go. Actually as pretty as that might be, it really isn’t necessary as the gameplay aspects can be handled in other ways. For instance, Trench Warfare (there is the zone in the middle with positions you can stop at without loosing troops), 1982 (subs, ships and aircraft) and WWII Europe (Britain as an Island, one way attacks and bombardments) all display various elements of these gameplay issues.

Click image to enlarge.

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Thirdly, typhoons or randomly generated storms that can destroy ports and fleets. This is something else simply not available with the XML engine on this site. The closest we have are decaying regions and conditional borders. But there is no randomisation. Nevertheless, good use of both decay and conditional borders will provide a degree of the effects you are seeking. For instance, you could have a port which can only be held if, for instance, you have troops on a ship. In, say, nuclear spoils you may have troops happily sitting on a ship and on the port only to lose both by a single poorly chosen card (or well chosen card depending on whose side you are on).

Fourthly, supply lines, supply of troops that relies on the column being maintained. This is a feature employed to good effect in Das Schloss:

Click image to enlarge.

Lastly, randomised volcanoes which destroy troops to zero if they go off. Same issue as the storms, and the answer is the same too.

Well, you raised some interesting questions and posed some interesting problems. Hopefully this little article will help you and be an inspiration to others. Congrats vaughn03, I look forward to seeing where you take this map.

Steve Jobs wrote:It is worthwhile to remember that open systems don't always win. Open versus closed is a smokescreen. Google likes to characterise Android as open and iOS as closed. We think this is disingenuous.

How can a quote from the former Apple CEO be relevant to maps? Well, we also have these two approaches to making maps.

Open - Maps made in the traditional foundry style going from the drafting room to gameplay to graphics to final forge to beta to quenching.Closed - Made behind the scenes and placed straight into beta at a set time.

So which one is better?OPENThe current foundry system is flawed but not broken. Every map, no matter how many maps have come before start in the drafting room. Here they pick up speed and after a while when certain things have been done they get moved into the main foundry. To get into the main foundry, two major points have to be met: Can it be played if it is put into play then? Does it have the community support to continue? Both of these are rather ambiguous points and it really is up to whoever is in charge of the drafting room at the time to say yes or no to any move. The same goes for all other parts of the foundry. Game play, graphics and beta. The only part of the map process that is 100% set in stone is the writing of the xml (the code that makes it all work).

Does the foundry work well like this, as game play can change later, graphics must be looked at early on and getting into beta can lead makers to jump through hoops they may not want to.

CLOSEDA closed system is slightly different. All the same aspects need to be met: gameplay, graphics and xml. The only difference between the two is the closed system is done in secret and no one gets to see the finished article till the very end when it goes into play. Maps like our seasonal maps have been made like this with one exception: Africa 2. The only difference between this one and the others is that it had a short period before being played where the whole community got to have a say.

Can the foundry work better like this as the original map maker gets to keep his original concept without all of the community getting in on the act? Remember the old proverb: Too many cooks spoil the broth.

Whilst the majority of the maps on this site have been made using the open system, a lot have been done in closed sessions. The original maps that the site started with and all of the seasonal maps. Note that many of these maps are not very well loved or even played very often. But they do have a certain appeal about them outside of the foundry map makers. Almost everyone from past and present think the closed maps are bloody awful, cause a lot of problems and make for unbalanced games.

OPENOne of the problems that the foundry has is this: All sound advice must be followed unless a logical rebuttal by the mapmaker or another member of the community is provided. But how can you give a rebuttal to an opinion? And with so many opinions to take into consideration, who is right? If you look in many map threads, you will see one old time map maker say one thing and another something else. So who is correct and whose idea to follow. And this is where the foundry fails.

CLOSEDWithin a closed system of map making, you do not get the above problem. Steve Jobs believed that closed systems results in a superior product. And he was correct when the right tools are used. Up to now, only once have the right tools been used. Christmas Map, St. Patrick's Day Map, Colosseum - Battle Royale Map, Easter Egg Hunt Map, South Africa 2010 World Cup Map, 2011 Women's World Cup Map all have some serious issues with them. They have been discussed at length in and out of the foundry forums but the general consensus seems to be that none of these maps would of gotten through the foundry in their current forms. Their is one exception to the rule and that is Africa 2 by thenobodies80.

Africa 2 was a pet project by Andy Durfense. For this map, he brought on Victor Sullivan, thenobodies80, iancanton and myself. Five people who have lots of experience within the foundry proper. Five people who have made maps, run the foundry, helped in the foundry and basically wanted the project to work. Normal map threads can last around 30 pages, Africa 2 lasted five pages, three of which were my failed attempt. It was such a short thread as everyone worked together on this, ian and Sully worked out the gameplay from nobodies' draft, I helped out with the graphics, spotting mistakes, Andy gave his opinions ... but we all pulled in the same direction. Within one month, the map was made, xml was written and it was ready for the charity drive to go forward.

OPENOne of the great things about the foundry (this completely contradicts the previous argument ) is the openness of it all. Having a good bunch of people together to work on a map can produce stunning results. Just look at a lot of the first drafts that come out and then compare them to the finished product. Even when you consider some of the drafts made by DiM and then the final result, you can clearly see how the foundry has worked to make a good draft a great map.

CLOSEDHere is that list of maps again: Christmas Map, St. Patrick's Day Map, Colosseum - Battle Royale Map, Easter Egg Hunt Map, South Africa 2010 World Cup Map, 2011 Women's World Cup Map, all of these maps prove that without the right resources, closed systems fail. Things get missed, gameplay can be erratic if not atrocious and graphically not up to par.

This maybe a reasonable argument for open systems like we have now, but it also goes to show, without the right people, closed systems cannot work. One of the things about the open system is that it allows anyone to have a go at map making. But only a very few can do it. In fact, over the course of 6 years, only 99 people have been able to do it. And not all of them have been able to do it alone. For each of the maps that do get made, around a hundred have been started or suggested.

THE FUTURENo one can predict the future. If they could, they would of won the lottery so many times they would not have time to play on the site. But one thing is for sure, times change, the foundry changes. Will the foundry stay as it is remembering that we now have over two hundred maps or will a time come when the foundry will stop being as it is? Can it really produce 20+ maps every year and still keep up the creativeness and quality? Or will we see a slow down of map production and may only get a few every year? No one really knows and that may be the tragedy of it all. With uncertainty, comes a breeding ground for resentment. We all have three choices to make within the foundry:

Leave the process as it is.

Leave it as it is but make changes to repair any damaged parts.

Change to a completely closed system.

OPENThere is little to be said now as this is what we have and, for the present time, it is how we work.

CLOSEDCan a closed system really make the foundry a better place. Apple thought it was a better way to go so why not have the foundry follow a similar model. The community at large can suggest maps to be made and even go as far as to how large it will be. But then a dedicated set of map makers work on it behind closed doors. Other sites have this method and whilst I am not saying their maps are better or worse than ours, they have a set level of quality that is stagnant. Without that level of competitiveness, they may never get any better.

THE FUTUREWill the foundry get closed down one day? I very much doubt it! Will it change from its current form? In some ways yes! With every foundry foreman, changes have come. Some have made large differences whilst others have made only small ones. For the better or worse, only the map makers can say. What few of them there are that is!

Do we right now have the tools in place to change the foundry to a closed system? No! But maybe in the future we will of got some talented map makers trained up to take on the awesome role of site maps. So for the time being we are stuck with what we have which in a sense is not a bad thing when all things go according to plan. But I will leave you with another quote, this time from Bob Dylan (Steve Jobs' personal favourite):

Bob Dylan wrote:You better start swimming or sink like a stone, cause the times they are a-changing.

In issue 80, thehippo8 started of what will hopefully be a long line of competitions for the foundry part of the dispatch. Not only has the best part of the dispatch gotten better with new writers, we seem to be giving away medals as well. Congratulations to ckyrias for getting the correct phrase.Thanks for playing with thehippo and koontz and nolefan and Qyu, congrats if you were the first.

For this issues we have a simple crossword for all of you brainiacs. Be the first to post the answers in the dispatch thread and win the GA medal.

Click image to enlarge.

And here are your clues. Some easy, some not, but all are names of maps.Across.3.A map you have to flush with. (8)6.Athens and Sparta get bloody. (13,3)7.One of the last maps made by the dreaded map maker. (7)8.The terminator state. (10)9.Go sight seeing in beta land. (10)Down.1.Hiding under the desks really works. (4,3,5)2.Pixar made a film about this map. (8)4."Top of the world ma" (10)5.Nelson's brown trouser time. (9)8.Number one. (7)

Rules.1.First one to post all the correct answers in the thread wins.2.CC volunteers cannot win.

Good luck everyone.

Happy gaming everyone, whatever map takes your fancy.

I'm sorry to say, but the Clan locker was completely cleaned out by thieves. I could have stopped them but it simply isn't my job! So when they had gone I have put what little I could glean from the covers of the books they stole.

Bruceswar wrote:Knights of the Round Table is a clan composed of friends who like to win games and have fun doing it!We are not your average clan so be prepared for a good fight if you seek to challenge us!

Across.3.A map you have to flush with. (8) Waterloo6.Athens and Sparta get bloody. (13,3) Peloponnesian War7.One of the last maps made by the dreaded map maker. (7) Eurasia8.The terminator state. (10) California9.Go sight seeing in beta land. (10) CopenhagenDown.1.Hiding under the desks really works. (4,3,5) Duck And Cover2.Pixar made a film about this map. (8) Monsters4."Top of the world ma" (10) Antarctica5.Nelson's brown trouser time. (9) Trafalgar8.Number one. (7) Classic

I don't imagine newsletter volunteers will ever be eligible for the contest. Since we have access to the article before it's published, it would be a monstrously unfair advantage. I wonder, though, if at some point you might develop the contest in secret, and insert it only at the moment of publication, so that we could compete? Perhaps not every time, but maybe 1 in 5 times or something like that.

I agree Duke, why shouldn't Team CC be able to play the Dispatch comp! So, yes, from now on they will be promulgated in secret and dispersed on publishing. The only ones in the know will be the Foundry team and the publisher.